


Qualms

by adara



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Academic Derek Hale, Academic Peter Hale, Alive Hale Family, Alive Vernon Boyd & Erica Reyes, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Brief mentions of Scott, First Meetings, Future Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, Plans For The Future, Pre-Relationship, Professor Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 23:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13891398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adara/pseuds/adara
Summary: In which Dr. Miecyslaw Stilinski does not start his day off in the best way but it starts to shape up when the guy in the leather jacket from the coffee shop arrives at his office.





	Qualms

**Author's Note:**

> This is not what I planned on writing. At all. It was supposed to be a meet cute where they picked up the wrong coffee cup and then this happened. I have so much headcanon for this that it might eventually grow. 
> 
> Inspired by how I did not get my correct coffee order this morning but I drank it anyways because I am a slave to caffeine and my mind was like hey wouldn't it be cute if Derek and Stiles got their coffee orders mixed up.

His messenger bag slid further down his shoulder as he shuffled a bit more to the side, tapped his foot, and continued to fidget restlessly. He’d ordered his drink a good ten minutes ago and had, he looked down at the time on his phone for the umpteenth time, approximately 15 minutes to get back to where he’d parked his jeep two blocks away, make it to the other side of the campus, find another parking spot, and get into the office for his appointment. He could still make it.

He tapped his foot some more and re-read the chalked out menu board again, looked over the bakery case again, pointedly did not make eye contact with any of the many warm bodies in this just off-campus coffee shop. Sure, there was a coffee chain in the building next to his and a Keurig in the department, but he was supporting the local economy and he just really liked the ambience here. That the barista kind of looked almost exactly like younger Sebastian Stan also helped.

He heard the chatter of the many filled tables throughout the place; students working through assignments and catching up between classes, millenials working remotely from the comfort of the coffee-scented air and cushioned seats, older adults meeting their friends for a mid-morning tea. He continued to check the time on his phone and slip it back into his pocket and definitely not look around. The worst part about teaching and looking the way he did was that he was either mistaken for a student or he was recognized and students tried to ask him about assignments on his off time, or worse, tried to flirt.

That’s what his office hours were for, not the flirting but the asking about assignments though a few gave it a spirited try each semester. 99.9% of the assignment questions he could respond to with, “It’s in the syllabus.” Erica had even gotten him a shirt that said that last Christmas, though he had yet to wear it outside of his home.

He still took appointments during his office hours to re-hash the same assignment questions anyways because he loved his subjects and if he could foster that same enthusiasm and competence in the next generation of academics, then he could say he’d accomplished something in life. That is presumably what his coming appointment was, more assignment questions, though it had been booked by Alicia the department secretary and not just a student request via his outlook calendar but that’s what any appointment besides his department meetings had been thus far so he wasn’t expecting much.

The woman next to him let out an irritated huff as her name was finally called. She snatched up her drink and practically flung herself out the door, she was clearly tight on time as well.

Ten minutes til his appointment time and Stiles heard his name called out, “Stiles. Derek. Order up!”

Two identical paper cups were slid across the top of the counter and Stiles grabbed the one that had been slid towards him. He was relatively a regular and really how many people on this campus could possibly be called Stiles so he felt pretty safe in the assumption that was his cup as he slid the cardboard sleeve up the base of the cup and briefly nodded at the leather jacket-clad man to his left, presumably the owner of the other cup, Derek.

As soon as the sleeve was on, he booked it out the door that was being held open by he-whose-name-is-probably-Derek. It would be a miracle if he made it to his car and found good parking. The faculty lot was supposed to be reserved, offering somewhat close spots to the lecture halls and offices, but the campus security really didn’t pay any attention to the parking stickers on the cars so some of the shiftier students claimed the best spaces with no repercussions.

Looks like today’s a good day though because he manages to get a relatively close spot and makes it to his office in record time, if a bit winded. His bag isn’t exactly light with his laptop and charger, and several older tomes he’d been working on that he didn’t feel safe leaving unattended in his car or office.

He unlocks his office and settles behind the desk in the nick of time, bag dropped heavily on top and paper cup of enough liquid sustenance to get him til at least lunch time set down gently. He’d need to refuel for the afternoon lecture and the long night of research he had planned but at least the first one of the day he could take a few moments to just enjoy the comforting and invigorating warmth of. The knock sounds at his door as the cup is about to reach his lips.

“Come on in,” he calls out and takes his first sip.

His face is screwed up in disgust and disappointment at the precise moment leather jacket guy from the coffee shop walks in nursing a low key scowl of his own at the sight before him.

  
“Ugh!” Stiles says at the same time leather jacket guy, Derek was his name right, pauses in the door with an, “Oh, I must have the wrong- I’m supposed to be meeting Dr. Miecyslaw Stilinski. Sorry, I’ll just-”

“No, no, no, no. no- you’re in the right place and this is definitely not my coffee. So gross. Sorry. Good coffee is an important foundation to the start of any day and ugh that was just- not what I was expecting.” Stiles rambles out. He sets the cup down, glowering at it as if it has personally offended him and scootches it to the furthest reaches of his desk as if it will attack him.

Derek’s eyebrows raise in question, “Oh, are you meeting him too?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the p and just barely reigning in the eye roll he really, really wants to be doing and instead plasters on a smile. He tilts his head to the side just a smidge and says the lines he is all too familiar with in the politest voice he can manage while being now both dreadfully under-caffeinated and with the bitter taste of not-his-coffee still polluting his mouth, “Dr. Miecyslaw Stilinski, Professor of Ancient and Modern Supernatural History, Director of the Supernatural and Paranormal Historical Arts and Research Division, Chair of Lycanthropic Studies, at your service. What can I do for you today?”

“Oh-” Derek says quietly, the tips of his ears pinking up almost imperceptibly. Stiles would’ve missed it if this wasn’t old hat to him. People had varying reactions upon meeting him but this was one he much preferred to outright laughing and having to reassert himself, which tended to happen just as often as embarrassment and remorse.

“Come, have a seat. Kudos to you on the pronunciation, by the way. You’re familiar with Polish, then? You can just call me Stiles, it’s easier. And you are?”

“Stiles,” he says like he’s testing it out and then nods like it meets whatever criteria he was holding it up against, perhaps recognizing it from the coffee shop where he’d heard it not too long ago and his eyes lit up with recognition. “Sorry about that. I’m Derek Hale. Thanks for meeting with me and, uh, yes to the Polish. My aunt back in New York. I’m not fluent or anything but I’m passable, when necessary.”

Stiles huffs out a small laugh at that, “I can’t imagine how often that can be necessary. Even I rarely have use of it, and even then it’s more often textual rather than spoken word so I’m probably rustier than my babusia would like, but such is life. But, I digress- I have to apologize, Mr. Hale, this appointment was scheduled with Alicia so I’m not sure what we were meeting about today?”

Stiles forgets that his coffee has been replaced by dirt water, retrieves it from the far end of his desk and takes a big gulp before making the same disgusted face he’d made when he’d taken the last sip, this time with the bonus of audibly gagging. “Oh my God, that’s gross. Sorry-” he says, pushing the cup out of his reach this time. He doesn’t have a sink in his office so he’ll have to wait to dump it out later and resist the urge borne of habit to promptly down the contents.

“Yeah, about that- I think that might be mine. Coffee shop on the corner of Birch and Steele? I’m that Derek.” Derek asks tentatively and can see the moment the lightbulb clicks on for Stiles.

“Oh man, I grabbed your cup? I didn’t even think- ugh, sorry.” Stiles grimaces, “I’m so sorry dude, you must’ve taken like one sip of that and been gagging too. My lattes are like _extra_ extra sweetened. Like give you diabetes sweetened. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s Derek, not dude, and to be fair, I think I grabbed your cup first. Or we simultaneously grabbed the wrong cups. Either way, I should’ve been able to smell it before I took that first sip but, honestly, that whole place smells sugary sweet from all the syrups and things and I was distracted at the time and running on a crunched schedule so...”

Stiles picked up immediately on the comment about smell, he had already pegged Derek Hale as a were’ before he had said that, before he’d said his name. Derek Hale of the Beacon Hills Hales was apparently back in Beacon Hills, in his office. Interesting. Alicia’s vague appointment block was making a bit more sense to him now. Stiles just now noticed some small wet splotches on Derek’s shirt, peeking out from his jacket, which he’d clearly tried to dry up with a napkin and failed en route to their appointment.

“Oh my God, did you spit it out?!” Stiles squawked at the realization, guilt and embarrassment crashing over him like waves.

Derek bit down on his lip and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “Yeah, on the sidewalk. So gross, I know. I couldn’t help it though. That thing was not even coffee.”

“I am the worst. I’m so sorry. If that’s what you drink,” Stiles nodded to the cup at the far edge of his desk, “I can only imagine. I’m sorry you had to suffer through that but your coffee, man, your coffee is the worst. So gross. But to each their own, right? Like I said before though, good coffee is an important foundation to the start of any day and so far our days are not off to the best of starts so how about you tell me what brings you here today and we will go get our real coffee after. I will refrain from besmirching your dark roast abomination. I should have enough time blocked off before I need to get back and I’m clearly still half asleep and babbling and-” If Stiles was a record you would’ve heard the screeeeeech as his mind caught up with his mouth and he realized he’d basically just asked an academically esteemed, random werewolf out for a coffee date. Knowing his list of publications was not the same thing as knowing him. Asking people out in the middle of your first meeting is also super unprofessional, damn Stiles.

Derek actually smiled at that though, so hope was not lost. “Yeah, that would be great. Their coffee is actually really good when you don’t drown it in milk and sugar. I’m still half asleep myself, I threw that thing in the trash on the way over here because I knew I wouldn’t have time to get another real coffee.”

Stiles took that as a challenge to his manhood or something and, as disgusting as it was to his palate, pulled the paper cup back over to himself and downed half of it while looking right at Derek with narrowed eyes. He was going to make some witty remark about being able to handle _real_ coffee but he was too busy fighting the urge to gag and there was Derek’s radiant smile again, laugh lines crinkling up at his eyes. Alright, Stiles could work with that. They’ve got a coffee date coming right up.

“So, Dr. Stilinski-”

“Stiles, really. It’s fine.”

“Stiles, then. I’ve been working with my Uncle Peter on some things out in New York for a while but I’ve moved back to California recently. Alicia was telling me that you’re looking to expand your Lycanthropic Studies division here. She’s familiar with the research we’ve been doing, her brother Boyd actually co-authored the L’Histoire piece on the Beast of Gévaudan with me, and she said you’re the guy to talk to about the expansion. So, if you won’t hold my differing taste in morning beverages against me, I’d like to hear about your plans for the division and see if we think it might be a good fit.”

Stiles shrugged and made a noise of assent, standing up from his desk and gathering the strap to his heavy bag back up onto his shoulder, “Well, in that case, there’s no need to be stuck in my stuffy office. This requires both of us to be awake enough to have a conversation about something other than coffee preferences. We absolutely need to discuss just what you were actually thinking about in that last American Journal of Lycanthropy article because I have some serious qualms with dearth of emmissarial perspective on that qualitative piece on modern pack dynamics. _Qualms_.”

Derek smiled again and nudged Stiles’ shoulder with his own as he stood and followed him out of the office. Stiles locked his office back up and they fell into step immediately. Stiles was speaking animatedly with practically his whole body, despite his lack of caffeine he clearly had some sort of energy thrumming just beneath the surface. Stiles and Derek were both thinking as they bantered their way back to the coffee shop that they definitely seemed like they would be a good fit in more ways than one. Alicia was going to get a floral arrangement for this, at the very least.

This time, when the barista called out “Stiles. Derek. Order up!” Stiles let Derek discern whose was whose before they headed to a nice cushy table in the back corner and laid a better foundation for their day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [9timesoutoften](https://9timesoutoften.tumblr.com/) where all asks and prompts are answered in some form and very occasionally posted and where you can always reach out to me to talk Sterek


End file.
